


zero hour

by inexorableformation



Series: phobia [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Parent Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Post-Recall, reaper watches out for his son dont @ me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23757199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorableformation/pseuds/inexorableformation
Summary: enclosed spaces aren't for everyone.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Series: phobia [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711432
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	zero hour

**Author's Note:**

> yo dont mind me, im just chillin over here in my "neither reyes nor reaper are abusive" corner  
> just vibin over here
> 
> (this has a sequel and a spin off so thats why its a series)  
> (dont worry there will be more of a resolution)

"Jesse, where are you?" Fareeha asks over the comms.

McCree looks around.

"Dunno if you'd believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"So about that whole infiltratin' Talon's base thing?" McCree says. "The good news is I'm in."

"Okay?"

"Problem is, I can't get out."

"The front gate should still be open-"

He sighs.

"I ain't gettin' to the front gate. I'm stuck in an elevator and they locked it remotely. Can't break or shoot it open, you need a code."

A second of silence.

"I'll get you out."

"No makin' fun of me?"

"Jesse," Fareeha says. "No need to pretend to be fine."

McCree sighs a second time. A third when his lungs constrict. Doesn't look at the walls closing in, the windowless room, the metal cage. Keeps his eyes closed. The world refuses to come back to him.

"I can manage for now," he answers. "But don't let that stop you from hurryin'."

"I'll be there before you-"

'Know it', she probably wanted to say before the connection cuts off. McCree's mind finishes the sentence differently. He feels the cold acutely as soon as he is alone in the steel prison. The light is bleak even through the skin of his eyelids.

A crackle in his earpiece. Fareeha's voice, cutting in and out.

"Try that breathing exercise," he thinks she is telling him. "I just got company, this might take a while."

He hears a whooshing noise as she takes to the sky again, rockets firing. Shotguns.

"What's happening?" McCree asks. "Are you okay?"

Fareeha snorts.

"Reaper's on me," she says. "He can't do much but I don't think he's going to let me enter the building."

"Wish I wasn't trapped. Could've helped you out."

"I got this. You just focus on not panicking. You will be un-trapped before you know it. There's no way he'll-"

Fareeha stops talking. The whooshing doesn't stop.

"You good over there?"

"Jesse," she says. "Reaper just disappeared."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"He might have heard me. He might be coming for you."

"Oh. Well, that ain't good."

"I'm on my way. Keep your eyes peeled."

McCree opens his mouth but the comms go quiet. As he looks back at the monotonous grey metal his fingers start to shake. Heavy shotguns, close range, can't miss. The air starts tasting stale. McCree thinks of drowning and chokes, sinks down into a corner and presses his palms against his ears to stop the ringing. Breathe. In through the nose. Hold it. Out through the mouth. As he looks up he stares death in the eye. McCree feels nothing but a bone-deep exhaustion, slumps, debates closing his eyes again.

Reaper stands directly across from him in the other corner of the elevator, arms crossed. No guns yet. A slow death.

"Howdy," McCree croaks and his throat feels like the noose is already tightened. "Fancy meetin' you here."

"Small world."

The voice hurts his ears and his head starts to spin, the walls close in. His heart beats so fast it will break. Nothing is real. Everything is. He tries to breathe but the seconds bleed into each other. He'll die. He'll die. He'll definitely-

"One," Reaper says and it is the one thing McCree hears that is louder than the frantic chime in his head. "Two. Three."

The length of a second starts to have meaning again. Up to ten. Repeat. Breathing that isn't shallow. Breathing that isn't hectic. The world returns. An eternity passed. As his vision clears he sees Reaper sitting on the floor in the other corner.

"Better?" Reaper asks. His voice is neutral but he's not calm. McCree is.

"Yeah. Much better."

"Good. How did you even get in here?"

"Was gonna go back to the upper floors but the stairs got blocked by some of your guys. Thought I'd give it a try. Didn't work out so well but I don't think tryin' to kill fourteen people with shields would've gone any better. Ain't got a death wish."

He keeps talking, out of it, in too deep. Coughs and wheezes like he just ran a marathon. A wave of something. His eyes widen as the other, the terror, returns.

"Focus on the breathing," Reaper says immediately. "You're doing good. Nothing's going to kill you in here."

McCree hurts and doesn't understand why.

"You know what this is like?"

The mask stares at him. A small instant of hesitation.

"I know what you are like when it happens."

McCree exhales until there is no air left in his lungs. His head isn't clear but the confusion dissolves like fog would. There's nothing to say.

Reaper laughs.

"You don't seem surprised."

"Gut feelin'," McCree answers. "Part of me knew before I figured it out."

"That why you didn't try to shoot, cowboy?"

"Well, you didn't shoot either."

"Why would I shoot you?" Reaper asks and it's half amused half genuinely puzzled. McCree frowns at him.

"Why would _I_ shoot _you,_ boss?"

"I asked you first."

"Well, I asked you second."

Another laugh. The voice doesn't hurt at all now.

"You're obnoxious," Reaper says and it's fond even before he finishes the sentence. "But it's nice to see you."

McCree's heart aches.

"Likewise. Don't really believe you're actually here but ain't it nice to hallucinate." 

Reaper hums.

"I'm here."

He is. He is sitting right there, tense only in the seconds that McCree's panic spikes. A single thought.

"Why?"

Reaper shrugs. Doesn't reply. The silence warps the sound in McCree's ears, the buzzing and the rush of blood. He grits his teeth, relaxes his jaw.

"Don't tell me you were worried."

"Should I be?"

"If you were," McCree says with half a grin, half a mind, "you shoulda just opened up this damn door and let me out."

Reaper watches him closely.

"If I was, don't you think I would have tried that already?"

A punch to the gut.

"You couldn't?"

"Not my security code."

McCree exhales another breath and his lungs don't suffer for it.

"Didn't think you actually would."

"I know what being in closed spaces does to you."

"Yeah but you're-"

He stops himself.

"I'm what?" Reaper asks. "A monster?"

McCree shakes his head.

"You're not on my side."

The words leave his lips and feel ashen, rotten, wrong. Reaper cocks his head.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

He _is._ McCree stares and stares and the elevator feels gigantic, a distance between the two of them that twenty years ago he would have feared more than anything. Reyes was his family. Reyes is dead.

"Am I gonna die in here?" McCree asks.

Reaper shakes his head.

"No. It won't take much longer."

"It?"

"I have a friend working on the lock."

"Oh. The hacker."

"Mhmm."

Worry flaring up bright and early.

"Is it smart to let her know you're helpin' me, though?" he asks. "Do you trust her?"

"I trust her with my life."

It's an immediate reply and the sting isn't jealousy. Not really. Grief doesn't age well with the undead.

"Okay," he says because any other words are too heavy.

Reaper watches his reaction.

"You'll be fine."

McCree opens his mouth and closes it. Another thought. Another gut-wrenching spark of fear. His mind spits it out. Down the drain.

"What about Fareeha?" he asks instead.

Reaper lifts up his chin.

"I didn't hurt her."

"No I-" McCree starts and continues with more emphasis. "I know you wouldn't."

"She'll be there."

A pause.

"What then?"

"What do you mean?" Reaper asks and the amusement is back. McCree's metal hand twitches.

"You were tryin' to kill us an hour ago."

Reaper laughs.

"If I had wanted either of you dead you would be."

"Fair," McCree says. "It's just- it's weird."

"What is?"

He gestures wildly to the room, them, the air that is clear and crisp and cold.

"This. Talkin' to you. Thinkin' you're either supposed to be dead or wantin' to shoot me."

"Neither of those things sound like a good time," Reaper answers.

"So you're just goin' to chill? Not gonna get in trouble for it?"

A shrug. Familiar.

"Not if no one finds out."

"It's that easy?"

"Funny you say that," Reaper says and snorts. "I've been accused of always making things more difficult than they need to be."

A different kind of panic, taking root so deep in McCree's heart that it has to stay buried. New Mexico to Route 66. Gibraltar to Rialto.

"Are you goin' to leave?" he asks and his voice cracks.

The ghost watches him still.

"Do you want me to?"

"I-"

McCree doesn't get to finish his sentence. The door pings and as he glances towards it there is a purple skull winking at him from the control pad. He turns back and sees smoke rising from the corner across from him, to the small fissures in the ceiling. He's on his feet before he knows it.

"Nonono," he says. "Stay, you don't have to-"

"I'm not going anywhere," Fareeha replies, confused, forcing open the doors the rest of the way. "How are you doing?"

She yelps as he hugs her like his life depends on it. Maybe it does. Her eyes are dark with worry when the words start to pour out of him, when he is pacing on their flight home, when he almost forgets to look at the sky when they leave the building.

"I dunno what to do with this," he says to the darkness of his room at the Watchpoint that is his home now and gets no answer. "I ain't got the first clue what to do, boss."


End file.
